ESP32: Your Privacy Shield Against ALPR #shorts

Our Take

STS Technologies LLC's short is a slick pitch for their FlockYou gadget, an ESP32-based device they're selling as a kind of privacy shield against Flock Safety's automated license plate readers. We appreciate that more people are building hardware and raising awareness about ALPR creep, and credit to the creator for pushing the conversation into DIY electronics territory. But a thirty-second product teaser can't carry the weight of serious technical or legal claims, and we're not going to pretend it does.

Here's the reality check: ALPR systems like Flock's are deployed by local governments and police departments, often without meaningful public input, and the data they collect is frequently shared across jurisdictions with few guardrails. A gadget that claims to jam or confuse a camera doesn't address the underlying problem — that your movements are being logged into a searchable database whether or not any single device scan succeeds. It also raises obvious legal questions about tampering with traffic infrastructure that buyers should think through before clicking 'add to cart.'

The real fight against this surveillance dragnet isn't fought with a single piece of hardware. It's fought by knowing where these cameras actually are, organizing your neighbors, and pushing elected officials to rein in or kill these contracts. Check our camera map to see what's watching your community, and hit up our take-action page for ways to push back that don't involve a soldering iron and a gray legal area.